Fitting
a classroom onto a dime

The
doors are locked and the hallways dark inside
Stanford's CIS-X building, but even though it's 3
a.m. on campus, a small group of high school students
is beginning to use a laboratory. Their invisible
hands tinker with a laser beam as they work to
complete their class assignment.

Despite
the late hour, the young scientists aren't yawning.
If anything, their stomachs are growling because it's
noon in Holland, where they are using a computer
mouse to control Stanford's lab tools.

Even if
the students were on campus, they wouldn't actually
be able to handle the equipment ­ which at full
scale might spread across a small room. In this case,
the setup is closer to the size of a shoebox.

It's all
part of new technology recently launched by
electrical engineering Professor Lambertus Hesselink.
Through his distance learning company, live science
experiments now can be conducted on Stanford's campus
by students thousands of miles away. The robotically
enhanced labs are accessed and controlled remotely
over the Internet.

"We
did this first," Hesselink says of his miniature
labs, adding that his are the most advanced ones to
date. "Now there are some other experimenters
that are doing similar things, but I think we were
the first in the world to do this."

Once
widely distributed, the labs will benefit both the
learning process and an institution's budget,
Hesselink says. He estimates his labs are 50 to 100
times cheaper than the cost of building and
maintaining a life-sized laboratory.

"Because
we've used cameras and you can look at it [on
screen], you don't need to have a big space around it
where people can interact," he says of the labs'
dollhouse-like stature. "So therefore you can
put it all into a small box, and you can stack these
things and in one room have many, many
laboratories."

The labs
also can run through the night to cater to students
in different time zones and thus create more
efficiencies.

In
addition to controlling aspects as simple as room
lighting, students control camera angles and levers
on all the equipment. They converse together using a
built-in chat room, take notes and review the
assignment ­ all online.

The new
technology should offer more to students than the
ability to finish a lab project at home. It also will
open up new opportunities for classroom learning,
Hesselink says.

"Suppose
you have an atomic force microscope that might be
sitting in China or somewhere, but there is an expert
here that knows a lot about interpreting these
pictures," he explains. "That person
doesn't have to travel to China or wherever that
microscope is. He could interact with them remotely.

"Nothing
is local."

Ahead
of the Internet curve

Hesselink's
vision of remote-controlled Internet labs has been a
work-in-progress since 1992.

Back
then ­ just as the web was being invented ­
Hesselink proposed his idea to the National Science
Foundation.

"They
said, 'Well, it's a very interesting idea, but it's
not worthwhile and it could not be done,'"
Hesselink recalls, sporting an only slightly visible
I-told-you-so grin. "So I looked at that and
said, well, this is ahead of its time. These people
really don't know what they're talking about."

In 1998,
he tried again. This time he approached Stanford's
Commission on Technology in Teaching and Learning.
His proposal ­ to build a lab accessible through the
Internet ­ garnered the highest rating and the
largest amount of money that was given out.

"It
was really a great success from there on," he
says.

In 1999,
using a full-sized table and conventional lab
devices, Hesselink completed his first
remote-controlled lab for the program. While the
experiment in distance learning was well received
(the School of Engineering and the School of
Education both helped in evaluating the device),
Hesselink realized there were still a few kinks that
needed to be ironed out.

One
problem was that students could not work on an
experiment in groups, as they would in a real lab
setting. The Internet technology was not yet
available.

So after
the experiment was completed, Hesselink partnered
with two graduate students and formed Senvid, a
private company devoted to furthering his vision. The
partners ­ Eric Bjornson and Dharmarus Rizal ­
helped develop Senvid's own Internet applications for
student collaboration.

The
company unveiled its new, miniature version of the
remote-controlled labs earlier this year. After a
meeting in March with the Dutch minister of
education, Senvid entered an agreement to have the
product tested in 14,000 high schools and primary
schools in Holland. Students began using the
technology for the first time this month.

"Some
colleagues say this will be useless [because a
student needs to get a feel for the real-life lab
equipment]," Hesselink says. "But that's
like saying let's go back to walking everywhere
because that's what we were born with. The world is
changing."

From
a shoebox to a dime

Even as
Senvid tests the current miniature labs, Hesselink
and his partners are working to institute the next
step of his vision. While working with the Stanford
Learning Lab several years ago, he coined the phrase
"laboratory on a dime."

"My
vision is, if you don't have to actually touch the
equipment anymore, then size no longer matters,"
he explains. "You could take a microscope or
some other optical device and look at these very
small labs and they would appear to you as being
big."

Using
advanced lens and chemical technology, Hesselink
hopes to have microchip-sized laboratories capable of
hosting tiny chemistry experiments. He compares the
technology to what is used in inkjet printers.

"As
long as you get enough molecules together, the
reaction will take place," he says, explaining
that stocking cabinets full of chemicals for a normal
classroom lab could become an expense of the past.
"You don't need to have a big batch. A small
batch is just as fine."

Hesselink
hopes the labs will be affordable enough so that they
could be distributed to schools that cannot afford to
build life-sized labs. Instructors also could use the
labs for in-class demonstrations.

The
challenge for him now is figuring out how to get the
data in and out of the experiments and how to hook
them up. The group hopes to complete some test runs
of their innovations by next summer.

Not
'virtual'

As
Hesselink demonstrates one of Senvid's experiments
involving measuring gases, the computer screen shows
that a valve suddenly has stuck. He is not
discouraged or embarrassed by the public setback,
though. In fact, Hesselink is excited that it is
happening during a demonstration.

"This
is a normal thing that occurs," he explains,
smiling. "It's a real effect that occurs in the
laboratory."

Therein
lies the difference between a virtual computer
program depicting a laboratory setting and what
Senvid is developing. Hesselink's labs may be a
distant cousin of their virtual counterparts, but the
differences are important, he says.

"Simulations
will give you an ideal every time," he explains.
"In reality that's not the case. We could use
those programs to understand the physical world
better, but it's not a replacement. Just like flying
on a simulator is fun and it's very helpful, but I
would rather not have a pilot who has only flown on
one. Sometimes things go wrong."

When
things go wrong with the Senvid experiments, students
must go back and pinpoint what the cause may have
been. Hesselink doesn't envision his labs replacing
all life-sized labs either.

"I
think they will be side by side," he says.
"Normal laboratory work is still very helpful in
terms of getting dexterity, feeling and interaction
with the equipment.

"There's
the ability to have the best of both worlds. You get
your hands-on experience, but you get it all
automated right here."